Chapter 12

Chapter 12

Alessia’s POV

96% 11:22

As I walk into the training ground with Scarlett by my side, I involuntary start searching for Caden and find him in front of a punching bag and… staring at me? Nope. Glaring. Definitely glaring at me.

1 trail my eyes down his body and have to take a moment to appreciate just how fine he is. Dragging my eyes back up his body to his eyes, I find him still glaring at me and that appreciation dies.

1

I avoid his gaze, turning my head away from him and laughing at something Scarlett just said.

Scarlett has proved to be a reliable person and maybe even a friend. She showed me to the training grounds and even promised to help me out with some basic training skills.

She walks ahead of me and picks up two dumbbells from a shelf pushed to the wall. She brings it over to where I’m standing.

“These are one of the lightest weights. We’ll start with this and move on to some heavier ones. She passes them over to me and I take them from her, barely hiding a groan at their weight. These were seriously some of the lightest?

“Ok,” I say tentatively, wondering how many times I could lift this without seeming like a weakling.

“Then afterward, we’ll take some laps around the track in human and wolf forms. Then move on to some basic fighting skills, she informs, smiling reassuringly at me. “In no time, you’ll be able to hold your own in a fight.

“Thank you for helping me. I really appreciate this.” I meant that. I want to learn how to fight and defend myself and I’m grateful to her for helping me out.

“Don’t mention-”

Scarlett gets cut off as Caden stands between us. His green eyes are lit with the flames of hell as they burn. into mine. He grabs the dumbbells from me effortlessly.

Showoff.

“What on earth do you think you’re doing here?” He grits out, the vein on his neck popping out and distracting me for a second. Would that vein suddenly burst out one of these days?

I trail my gaze away from it and back to his gaze. “Scarlett is teaching me how to fight since you wouldn’t.” That’s right girl. Stand up for yourself. So what if he looks like he’s five seconds away from strangling me and dumping my body in a dumpster? It’s not like he can do that with all these witnesses.

He couldn’t…right?

He turns over to Scarlett and I open my mouth, ready to defend her if I need to.

Hold this for ma

nvaccine the dumbbells over to her and Scarlett wordlessly takes them off

Chapter 12

his hands.

He turns back to me with the fire still present in his eyes. “Come with me.” He places his hand on the small of my back.

To anyone, it looked like he was being a gentleman and guarding me out of there but I knew better. I was about to get an earful from him out of the view of these unsuspecting people.

I could have stood my ground and prevented him from dragging me out, but something tells me that would just make my situation worse.

“I can walk by myself.” I whisper, taking care to keep my voice low to prevent the people with super hearing from eavesdropping. I could bet my left ear that half the people in here were straining their cars to get a whiff of our conversation.

“Shut it. We’ll talk when we’re out of here,” he whispers back and continues leading me away from the training grounds and in the direction of the pack house

When we’re a few good feet away. he stops and lets go

of my

back.

I almost whimper at the great feeling of loss that comes over me. Another second and I would have been begging him to put his hand back on me. Thankfully he starts talking. Or rather, yelling.

“What is wrong with you?!” He asks exasperatedly. “Do you just purposely go against my words to try and get a rise out of me?”

I scoff. “You think highly of yourself don’t you.” As soon as the words are out of my mouth, I regret it.

Why do I keep digging my grave deeper?

Caden on the other hand looks about ready to burst into flames. If he was an animated character, I was very sure that he would have flames coming out of his head.

Of all the things I expected, it wasn’t for Caden to just sigh and for his shoulders to deflate.

“Just go back to the pack house,” he says, turning around and already dismissing me like I was an irate child.

That’s it? He’s just going to walk away without even yelling or warning me off. Like he couldn’t even be bothered. Like I wasn’t worth it.

I inust be a suck e r for punishment. That’s the only reason why I stop Caden by yelling, “I’ll tell people that

we’re mates.

Almost dramatically, Caden turns around, that fire back in his eyes and it makes me…happy? Was Caden right? Do I get off on riling him up?

He walks back to me., What did you just say?”

In a show of saving face, I cross my arms over my chest and jolt my chin out. “I’ll tell people we’re mates if you don’t let me train.” Figuring out that the ball was in my court, I take it up a notch, “and you’ll be

JJ MMB B B B B B BBBB

Chapter 12

UZN

90% 11:22

training me yourself.” What better way to learn something than to learn from the best?

Caden looks at me unbelievably. Then he chuckles. That chuckle turns into a laugh and that laugh turns into a full-blown, belly-rumbling, knee-slapping laughter.

What the hell? Did I just break Caden?